Senator Specter has a lot of time on his hands ...

... because he has time to pen a very sensible op-ed for the Wall Street Journal about judicial nominations, but at the same time, he's literally making a federal case about the New England Patriots' "Tape-Gate" scandal, in which the Pats and Bill Belichick were accused of videotaping on the sidelines to steal opponents' defensive signals:

"I am very concerned about the underlying facts on the taping, the reasons for the judgment on the limited penalties and, most of all, on the inexplicable destruction of the tapes," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., in a Thursday letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Senator, the Steelers and the Eagles (his two constituent NFL teams) either lost in the first round of, or didn't make, the playoffs. Is it really necessary to call this out the week of the Super Bowl? Maybe Specter has a large amount of campaign funds behind the Giants this Sunday, and he just needed to rattle the Patriots' chain to guarantee a payoff.